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Posted on 06/27/2002 12:41:29 PM PDT by spald
Parents praise court's ruling on school vouchers
By PAUL SINGER, Associated Press
CLEVELAND (June 27, 9:54 a.m. PDT) - The Supreme Court's endorsement of school vouchers was praised Thursday by parents who have used them to put their children in religious rather than public schools. In Florida, voucher critics vowed to press their court fight.
Elaine Barclay, 35, who has two daughters attending a Baptist school under Cleveland's voucher program, said the ruling was an answer to her prayers.
"It means everything to us," she said. "We were praying they would rule for the vouchers."
In a 5-4 ruling, the court said the Constitution allows public money to back tuition at religious schools, as long as parents can choose among a range of religious and secular schools.
Voucher programs are in place in only three places: Florida, Cleveland and Milwaukee. The court ruling addressed only the 6-year-old pilot program in inner-city Cleveland, but it is expected to protect other programs and encourage other states to consider vouchers.
Opponents say vouchers will financially cripple needy public schools.
At a a National Education Association conference in Dallas, NEA president Bob Chase criticized the ruling and said public schools have improved dramatically, with rising scores in reading and math.
"Vouchers are not reform," he said. "Vouchers are a divisive and expensive diversion from continuing progress in these areas."
Florida in 1999 became the first state with a comprehensive voucher law, though it limits eligibility to students at struggling public schools. The law has been challenged in court, and critics said they would press forward with their case despite Thursday's ruling.
"Our lawsuit is based on the Florida Constitution, which is far more specific in its language," said Maureen Dinnen, president of the Florida Education Association.
The part of the Florida suit yet to be heard involves the same question the Supreme Court answered in the Ohio case: Is it constitutional to send tax dollars to religious schools?
The Cleveland program allows parents to use a tax-supported stipend to send their children to religious and other private schools in Cleveland or to public schools in adjacent districts. The program is open to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with preference given to poor families.
It began in 1996 with about 2,000 children. It now has about 4,400 children taking advantage of vouchers between $1,875 to $2,250 per student.
Eulanda Johnson, 37, of Cleveland was overjoyed at the ruling.
"Thank you lord!" she said. "I thought I was going to have to work a second job."
Johnson's daughter, Ebony Williams, is entering sixth grade at St. Mary's Catholic school. Based on her income, Johnson pays 25 percent of the school's $2,250 annual tuition and the voucher program pays the remainder.
"Now I can be able to afford to send her to the school," Johnson said.
The Rev. Steve Behr, a Lutheran minister who was among the plaintiffs who challenged the program, said the ruling will simply speed the erosion of Cleveland's public school system.
"It has taken 200 years for this country to build up a public school system that would serve everyone," he said. "Now we are taking money out of the public school system, so next year we can just turn around and say, 'See, they are failing.'"
Behr, who now lives in San Antonio, says the ruling also raises concerns about the separation of church and state.
"You are in actuality giving a subsidy to a religious institution," he said. "They are giving it for the support of the school and its worship."
In Wisconsin, where Milwaukee's 1990 voucher program is the nation's oldest, Gov. Scott McCallum said vouchers help the entire state by improving education.
"There have been significant changes in public education because of the school choice program," he said.
Milwaukee's program has grown to include 10,882 students in more than 100 schools in the school year just ended. Carmellett McVicker, a single parent of a 13-year-old autistic girl, said she wouldn't be able to afford the special education her daughter needs if she didn't have vouchers.
"This is the cornerstone of America - freedom of choice," McVicker said. "This really was the only decision."
What a nice day this has been with this ruling...
Feeling the competition eh?
"Our lawsuit is based on the Florida Constitution, which is far more specific in its language," said Maureen Dinnen, president of the Florida Education Association.
Ping.
And if Cleveland's public school system cannot reform itself enough to meet the competition, he's right. To which the only logical response of the reform advocate is, "So what?"
"Our lawsuit is based on the Florida Constitution, which is far more specific in its language," said Maureen Dinnen, president of the Florida Education Association.
Ping.
Sorry to write so pedestrian, but modern teachers are way behind the curve in market realities and may need our help to understand the very real oportunities that vouchers represent. In the talks I've had with teachers, they are so caught up in the union mindset that they haven't even dared IMAGINE their future under vouchers.
Bad or dull teachers will stay at existing under-performing schools, while good, tough, engaging teachers will "start a business" together, and bring along only quality people, the profit motive tends to enforce discipline and quality. Parents will flock to your school, provided you "sell" the comparative advantages.
Show some guts, do it. Realize your potential. The Supreme Court and public opinion is behind you.
"You are in actuality giving a subsidy to a religious institution," he said. "They are giving it for the support of the school and its worship."
It's about the children. About each child getting an education meeting the expectations of people who actually, specifically, care about that individual child.Perhaps a religious institution is so much more efficient than the government school that, while delivering that satisfaction to those who care about the child, it actually makes a profit on income insufficient for the government school to break even . . . and thus is able to use that money to enlarge a church sanctuary. If so that is hardly a reflection on the church school.
Besides we are a humanistic society whose member organisims have evolved through adapatation and natural selection.
It would unnatural to keep a person (through welfare) or an institution (Such as public schools)form the natural order of things; which is survival of the fittest.
By keeping them afloat we are practicing "charity" which is a relgious practice found in ALL religious texts. Religion has no room in our society... right?
Part of me wants teachers to join the real world, the one most of us inhabit, where you are compensated only according to your ability. Public school teachers and administrators are in for a steep learning curve. Private and religious school people know the story, grab some of them. The market is brutal to pretenders and lazy entrepeneurs, so you better be good at your craft before you dare to start a new school.
Take, for instance, the figure of $4,000. per student voucher. Attract a thousand kids, gather those slips of paper ( 4 million dollars in your bank) and create a budget that pays teachers according to their success, and salaries for administrators that attract good people. I suggest you hire a marketing guy who doubles as an administrator or dean of something. Sell you new school to the public... you're on your way to a great little business.
The parents are hungry for this new opportunity to give thier kids an advantage. The potential is exciting, for those with the stomach for freedom.
If you are correct--if vouchers aren't a long enough spoon to dine with Ted Kennedy--then time will show that. But that will be a further battle. At least this is better than the principle that the government schools own the child or, if not the child, then his/her tuition.
No, in this situation you are giving a subsidy to a needy parent....period. What that parent does with the money is their business, so long as it is used for school tuition. To hold otherwise would constitute a law "restricting the free exercise thereof" (for those of you in Rio Linda, that's the part of the first amendment that the liberals ignore). Under this guy's rational tax refunds and welfare payments would be unconstitutional because the recipient might donate some of the proceeds to their church.
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